It is well known to accumulate and transport materials in single-use flexible bags. This practice is used in activities ranging at least from residential and restaurant waste disposal, to industrial collection and shipping of in-transit letters and packages by delivery companies, to bagging of purchased items in department stores and supermarkets.
In some prior art applications, such as in bagging fruits and vegetables by customers in a supermarket, sequential bags are dispensed from a dispenser by sequential customers and are loaded by the customers, without benefit of a supportive frame. Bags are provided to the supermarket in the form of bag packs comprising a plurality of identical bags wherein only the outermost bag is available for use, removal of which presents the next bag for use. Typically, the bags in a pack are attached in some fashion near the tops of the bags to ensure integrity of the pack prior to use.
In some other prior art applications, bags are dispensed as just described, but each bag is then supported by an enabling structure, which may be open or closed on the sides but open at the top, and which serves to keep the mouth of the bag open for a user during loading. A trash can, garbage can, or waste basket is a typical enabling structure of this type. The enabling structure may be rectangular or round. In many such applications, such as in waste receptacles for fast food restaurants and home kitchens, the bag pack is typically a roll or package of sequentially-arranged bags stored remotely from, or in the bottom of, the receptacle. After a bag is filled by customers' discarded waste, a worker removes the filled bag from the receptacle by lifting the bag vertically out of the structure and then replacing the filled bag with a fresh bag, typically obtained from a remote storage, stretched over the four lips of the receptacle structure.
A shortcoming of a structure closed on the sides is that the new bag can undesirably trap air between the bag and the wall of the structure, thus inhibiting proper expansion of the bag in use. In other instances wherein the structure is an open-sided frame, the bag is free to expand.
Obtaining each bag from a remote source as needed and installing the bag into the receptacle is time-consuming for a worker and thus is cost-inefficient. Further, such applications wherein each full bag must be lifted out of the structure are physically demanding of workers and can give rise to back injuries in the work force.
In still other prior art applications, a pack of bags is dispensed sequentially from a dispensing frame which then serves further to support each bag during loading. This arrangement is an efficiency improvement in that a worker is not required to obtain each bag as needed from a remote location. However, each dispensed bag is supported only loosely on the left and right edges by frame rails extending through openings along the edges of the bag mouth, and thus the mouth of the bag is not held fully open by the device, making it somewhat difficult for a worker to load successive items into the bag. Further, the bag is not prevented by the frame from being separated prematurely and undesirably from the pack.
US Patent Application Publication No. US 2007/0235455 discloses a garbage can liner system wherein multiple plastic bags are compressed into a flat pack having a supportive edge, which may include a frame, surrounding the pack. Each of the bags is joined to its adjacent bag along a tearable line. The supportive edge rests on the entire surrounding lip of a standard size garbage pail, with all the bags in the pack being pushed down and distended to fit into the pail, such that all bags are placed in an opened state. As each successive top plastic bag is filled with trash, it is torn away from the surrounding supportive edge and removed from the pail through the top opening of the pail, leaving the next bag neatly in place for filling.
What is needed in the art is a system (apparatus and method) for storing, dispensing, and loading successive bags wherein bags are provided in a multiple-bag pack supported by a structure, wherein upon being dispensed each bag is supported by the structure for loading, wherein the mouth of each bag is fully distended in the structure by having the front and rear edges of the bag folded over the top of the structure, and wherein each bag is prevented during loading from being separated prematurely from the bag pack.
It is well known in the prior art to insert a new bag into a structure that is open at the top and then to secure the bag in place by folding the open edges of the bag over the top edge of the structure. What is not disclosed in the prior art is how to combined this mounting method with a multiple-bag pack that relieves the user from obtaining and installing a new bag from a remote location each time the bag must be changed. It is a principal object of the present invention to facilitate the sequential loading of bags.
It is a further object of the invention to reduce worker fatigue and to increase worker efficiency in installing, loading, and removing sequential bags from a supportive structure.